My dad used to eat a bag of Hostess mini powdered donuts every single day. After a long night of drinking and grading papers, he would wake up at 4 AM, head to the neighborhood 7-Eleven, buy a bag of Donettes and a tall cup of coffee, and walk home to eat them throughout his day of dissociation. As a child, I never understood these habits. I laughed every time I caught him eating his mini powdered donuts. Daddy, you’re going to get a stomach ache, I would taunt. He would put his sugar-coated index finger up to his lips, tell me not to tell mama, then turn back to his desk covered with empty beer bottles and big bags of Donettes.
The beckoning call of drugs and alcohol was louder than the calls coming from my elementary school’s office when my father failed to pick me up again and again. My mother had to rush over instead, and every single time I felt my childhood naiveté be washed away by the tears, I cried in the back of my mother’s black minivan. Powdered donuts were not the only things my dad was addicted to. He was no longer someone I trusted, let alone someone I wanted to keep secrets for. I only saw him as an absent vessel of screwed synapses with powdered sugar smeared across his face.
He worked for years to sober up, but it was never a given.
“Addiction is all or nothing thinking,” my father told me, “like your battle with depression. You either pull yourself together or completely succumb to the sadness, never leaving your bed. All or nothing thinking, the hardest and most manipulating kind of reasoning.”
At first, I didn’t believe that the same kind of thinking that encouraged my father’s addiction also affected me.
After I started college, my negative thought patterns became more evident than ever before. Without the comfortable structure of home, I failed to take care of myself. I either ate too much, consuming loads of cheap fast food, or barely ate for days. I only sent in my assignments if I thought they were perfect, and if they weren’t, I didn’t bother sending them in at all. I constantly socialized to the point of losing my voice or isolated myself in the prison of my dorm room, dreading the thought of even talking to my roommate. I drank like my father used to for days on end until I felt so sick and disgusted with myself that I wouldn’t bother going out for weeks. I could not do things in moderation no matter how hard I tried. I seesawed back and forth between everything and nothing, my subconscious eager to tip the scale.
One night, after a heavy day of drinking and smoking, my friend knocked on my door. I was frozen in a fetal position with my stomach crawling up to my chest cavity. She kept knocking. Louder and louder, harder and harder. Eventually, the knocking vibrations aggravated my headache, so I opened the door, sluggish and disgruntled. “You need to eat,” my friend said to me as she passed me a roll of mini powdered donuts from the vending machine. I stared absently through the white wormholes to my past. “Just at least take them, and I’ll leave.”
My hand reluctantly reached for the donuts, and I shut the door. I threw the silicone package on my desk and retreated back into the fetal position. I could feel the eye-shaped cakes staring at me, mocking me. Without realizing it, I had become my dad, using all or nothing thinking to cope with the chaos of life and loneliness. I deserve more than this, I thought of my dad. We deserve more than this. We deserve stability and balance.
In an attempt to quit all or nothing living and escape my fear of becoming more like the past versions of my father, I experimented with moderation. My mother helped me create a plan to ensure more stability in my life. I started eating with my friends at breakfast, lunch, and dinner instead of eating or not eating in secrecy. I sent in all of my assignments even if they weren’t perfect and found that this helped me enjoy school more. I tried to sleep 9 hours every night, unlike my typical 5 hours and occasional 14. Still, the hardest area of creating balance in my college life was substance use. I did not know how to moderate my drug and alcohol use, and I was afraid to try.
I was tip-toeing between developing an addiction like my dad and losing what I was told was a “crucial” part of my college experience. I was a kid who couldn’t eat a Kit-Kat—a college student scared of drinking a single beer or taking a couple of hits from a joint. How could I enjoy the blissful recklessness of college life when all I could envision was how tumultuous the path ahead of me could become? I watched people at parties, observing the recently retired high schoolers slur their speech and stumble across backyards, unconcerned with how quickly a couple of years of drinking can turn into empty bottles and bags of powdered donuts on their desks. I imagined their future children, unable to understand why their mom and dads couldn’t stop eating, drinking, and numbing themselves.
Over the holiday break, I begrudgingly told my dad that I struggled with all or nothing thinking and that I was envious of others who didn’t think that way. My dad smiled back at me, put his wrinkled arm around my shoulder, and said. “Most people struggle with it, at least on some level, even if you can’t obviously tell. The secret that has helped me defy this type of thinking is simply trying to live life one day at a time. It takes the pressure away. If I am focusing on living life for today, then why would I waste the day worrying about the mistakes of the past or fretting about the days to follow? All or nothing thinking isn’t a mindful way of thinking, but one day at a time is.”
One day at a time. Life seemed a lot less daunting that way and living could finally feel more like an experience and less like a duty. One day at a time meant that the desire to be healthy, happy, sober, and safe could be tackled in smaller increments instead of feeling overwhelmed by trying to maintain that state for the rest of my life.
Once I returned to school, I took my father’s words with me, trying to create balance in my life by adjusting my all or nothing thinking one day at a time. Instead of worrying about what I was or wasn’t eating, drinking, or doing, I focused more on the experience and less on the thoughts that came along with it. I began to enjoy the taste of cereal in the morning and loved the sound of my friends’ laughter echoing in the library while we procrastinated on homework. I became more easy-going and joyous, less afraid of the idea that every decision I made would eventually lead me to some sort of impending doom. I became stronger and spoke up to my mind instead of falling victim to it.
I went to parties, sometimes partaking in substances, but other times not. On some nights, I would still feel guilty or nervous about how my actions could affect my future, but then I would remind myself that one day at a time meant not neurotically thinking about the rest of my life. One day at a time gave my father the strength to continue his recovery journey, whereas my one day at a time meant not letting my anxiety keep me from living life because I was afraid I would turn out like my father. Nothing is forever, everything is meaningful, and life is best balanced when faced mindfully. I am still young and am continuously figuring out how to live a balanced life, but I consistently remind myself that I am not bound to my or my father’s past.
Nowadays, I try not to put myself in the box of a child with an addictive parent, defying the idea that I either have to give up substances altogether or give into the path of addiction laid out before me. Of course, I still have to be careful about my substance use, but the need to be cautious has forced me to find moderation. I live life one day at a time, with courage and care helping me forge my path as a young adult. Somedays, I even eat a couple of mini powdered donuts, admiring my body’s ability to digest them just as time moves, cycled by the sun and moon. I’ll sit there, blissfully licking the white sugar off of my fingertips, taking pleasure in knowing that I am in no rush to finish the bag.